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<li class="toctree-l1 current"><a class="current reference internal" href="#">An introduction to Geoslurp</a><ul>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#what-the-future-holds">What the future holds</a></li>
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<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="installation.html">Installation of the geoslurp package and setting up the PostgreSQL instance</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="confsettings.html">Configuration</a></li>
<li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="examples.html">Tutorial</a></li>
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<div class="section" id="an-introduction-to-geoslurp">
<h1>An introduction to Geoslurp<a class="headerlink" href="#an-introduction-to-geoslurp" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p><strong>Geoslurp is a  pure-python module which allows downloading/updating/querying of different datasets in a spatially aware database (PostgreSQL with PostGIS).</strong></p>
<p>The idea behind Geoslurp is to centrally manage datasets, which has the following advantages:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>It provides and encourages a central point to access to various datasets</li>
<li>Established database functionatility can be exploited by allowing (spatial) queries of the datasets, <em>joins</em> (querying a combination of datasets)</li>
<li>Sharing is encouraged, users share data by default, making it possible for other users to use the registered data and avoiding copies of large datasets</li>
<li>It allows for consistent versioning of datasets</li>
<li>The use of an ‘off-the-shelf’ database provides a standard and mature interface reachable from various programming languages.</li>
<li>Large datafiles don’t necessarily need to be in the database. The metainformation, required for the queries, will be stored together with a link to where the data can be found (e.g. a local file path or an online url). This allows relatively light-weight databases to be set up.</li>
<li>Provide ways to standardize downloading/updating/registering of datasets</li>
</ul>
<div class="section" id="requirements">
<h2>Requirements<a class="headerlink" href="#requirements" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>To use Geoslurp one must essentially <a class="reference internal" href="installation.html#install"><span class="std std-ref">install</span></a> the Geoslurp Python package, and have a running PostgreSQL database with PostGIS. Geoslurp is currently not yet in PyPI, but this is foreseen in the future once a relatively decent first version is developed.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="what-the-future-holds">
<h2>What the future holds<a class="headerlink" href="#what-the-future-holds" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>At the time of writing, the geoslurp tools are still under development. But taking a look in the future, one may already philosophize about possible features:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>Manage a geoslurp instance by means of a website-frontend. Currently, the main way to interact with geoslurp is to use the <a class="reference internal" href="clitools.html#geoslurphelp"><span class="std std-ref">geoslurper command line script</span></a>. This may be too cumbersome to learn for occasional users.</li>
<li>Hide the database access behind a REST-API. This may be more secure when public instances will be set up and will facilitate the interaction with other webservices.</li>
<li>Encourage reproducibility by registering scientific processing pipelines.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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